Sunday, May 29, 2005

Plan II

Replace the squirrel’s normal feeder with a standard hopper+sticky tape and keep it topped up with hazelnuts

Record each day the no. hairs of each species that are stuck to tape

Let X days pass for habituation

Add a Selective Feeder around the hopper

Record each day: weight of nuts taken; continue hair counts and identification.

Record for X minutes at X o’clock each day how many squirrels successfully feed

Now to find some dedicated people that feed the local squirrels in their garden. Maybe they would even like to collect, each day, the little hairs squirrels leave stuck stuck to sticky tape...Oh yeah, and read some journals to fill in the X's

Hmm, yes this is a very good point. The idea is that counting the squirrels will help in determining how many have fed, by counting at different times of day and extrapolating. Hairs and nut disappearance will only give relative data as you say, but it will be quite accurate relative data! The theory is that greys won't be able to get into the feeder; thus the amount of nuts taken only works if only red squirrel hairs are found. If any grey ones are there too then the nut count for that day won't really be so useful.

Small plan revision required: I also need to be counting the squirrels for the few days that they're being habituated to the hopper before the selective feeder's added. Cheers Andy!

Henry Dobson

Testing a revolutionary size-selective squirrel feeder that could help red squirrels to resist the grey squirrel invasion. Research carried out as an Honours project in zoology at the University of Glasgow

All images copyright Henry Dobson excepting those taken in Gosforth Park Nature Reserve as part of an ongoing 3 year research project, copyright Veronica Carnell.